Thursday, February 24, 2011

Buyer turn-offs

Here are 6 big-time homebuyer turn-offs that make buyers cringe at the thought of your home, and action steps you can take to prevent your home from being an offender:

1. Stalker-ish sellers.

I know you think you’re being helpful, walking the buyer through your home and pointing out the wagon-wheel light fixture you made with your own two hands, the custom mural of a stingray you paid top dollar to have painted across your living room wall and the way the sounds of happy schoolchildren running across the front yard of your corner lot to get to the school in the next block lifts your spirits. However, the buyers might be trying really hard to ignore, minimize or figure out how to undo the very features of your home you hold dear. They also may want or need to have personal space and conversations with their mate or their agent while they’re viewing your home - you being there, especially walking right alongside them while they’re in your home, prevents them from being comfortable about doing this, or discussing all the things they would change if the home were theirs. In my experience, the more nitpicky a buyer gets about a house and the more detailed their list of things they would change, the more serious they are about considering making an offer on this place.
What’s a Seller to do? Back off. Let your home be shown vacant, or leave the house when people come to see it. If you need to be there, at least walk outside or go sit at the coffee shop down the way while prospective buyers view your home. If the buyers have questions, their people will contact your people.

2. Shabby, dirty, crowded and/or smelly houses.

You already know this one. Yet, buyers constantly marvel. The buyers who come to see your home are making the decision whether to choose your home for the biggest purchase they’ve ever made during the worst economic conditions most of them have ever experienced. Your job is to get your home noticed – favorably – above the sea of other homes on the market, many of which are priced very, very low.
What’s a Seller to do? Other than listing your home at a competitive price, the only tool within your control for differentiating your home from all the foreclosures and short sales is to show it in tip-top shape. Pre-pack your place up, getting rid of as many of your personal effects as possible. Do not show it without it being completely cleaned up: no laundry or dishes piled up, countertops freshly washed, smelly dogs (I have a couple who smell on occasion – no judgment – but don’t show your house with pet odors) or litter boxes cleaned and/or out of the house.


3. Irrational seller expectations (i.e., overpricing).

Buying a house on today’s market is hard work! On top of all the research and analysis about the market and situating their own lives to be sure they’ll be able to afford the place for 5, 7, 10 years - or longer, buyers have to work overtime to separate the real estate wheat from the chaff, get educated about short sales and foreclosures and often put in many, many offers before they get even a single one accepted. The last thing they want to add to their task lists is trying to argue a seller out of unreasonable expectations or pricing. And, in fact, there are so many other homes on the market, buyers don’t have to do this. When they see a home whose seller is clearly clueless about their home’s value and has priced it sky-high, most often they won’t bother even looking at it. If they love it, they’ll wait for it to sit on the market for awhile, hoping the market will “educate you” into desperation, priming the pump for a later, lowball offer.
What’s a Seller to do? Get real. Get out there and look at the other properties that are for sale in your area and price range. Get multiple agents’ take on what your home should be listed at, and don’t take it personally if their recommendation is low. If your home has much less curb appeal or space or is much less upgraded than the house across the way, don’t list it at the same price and expect it to sell. If you owe more than your home is realistically worth, you may need to reexamine whether you really want or need to sell, or consider a short sale, if you simply have to sell. Don’t be tempted into testing your market with an obviously too-high price, unless you’re prepared to have your home lag on the market and get lowball offers.

4. Feeling misled.

Here’s the deal. You will never trick someone into buying your home. If the listing pics are photo-edited within an inch of their lives, or your home is described as an “approved” short sale when, in fact, the bank approved another offer, now withdrawn, but will require a new offer to go through any sort of approval process (even a truncated one), buyers will learn this information at some point. If your neighborhood is described as funky and vibrant, as code for the fact that your house is under the train tracks and you live in between a wrecking yard and a biker bar, prospects will figure this out. If the detailed information about your home, neighborhood or even transactional position (e.g., short sale status, seller financing, etc.) is misrepresented, the sheer misrepresentation will turn otherwise interested buyers off. If you authorize your agent to “verbally approve” the buyer’s offer, don’t go back the next day demanding an extra $5,000. In cases where the buyer feels misled, whether or not that was your intention, running through the buyer’s mind is this question: If they can’t trust you to be honest about this, how can they trust you to be honest about everything else?
What’s a Seller to do? Buyers rely on sellers to be upfront and honest – so be both. If your home has features or aspects that are often perceived negatively, your home’s listing probably shouldn’t lead with them (like the ad I recently saw with the intro line: “this place is a mess!”), but neither should you go out of your way to slant or skew or spin the facts which will be obvious to anyone who visits your home. Make sure you know what the listing of your home reads like, before it’s published to the web, and that a prospective buyer will not feel misled by it.


5. New, ugly home improvements.

Many a buyer has walked into a house that has clearly been remodeled and upgraded in anticipation of the sale, only to have their heart sink with the further realization that the brand-spanking-new kitchen features a countertop made, not of Carerra marble, but brand-new, pink tiles with a kitty cat in the middle of each one (I saw this once, people – no joke). Or the pristine, just-installed floors feature carpet in a creamy shade of blue – the buyer’s least favorite color. New home improvements that run totally counter to a buyer’s aesthetics are a big turn-off, because in today’s era of Conspicuous Frugality, buyers just can’t cotton to ripping out expensive, brand new, perfectly functioning things just on the basis of style – especially since they’ll feel like they paid for these things in the price of the home.
What’s a Seller to do? Check in with a local broker or agent before you make a big investment in a pre-sale remodel. They can give you a reality check about the likely return on your investment, and help you prioritize about which projects to do (or not). Instead of spending $40,000 on a new, less-than-attractive kitchen, they might encourage you to update appliances, have the cabinets painted and spend a few grand on your curb appeal. Many times, they will also help you do the work of selecting neutral finishes that will work for the largest possible range of buyer tastes.


6. CRAZY listing photos (or no photos at all).

We’ve seen listing photos that have dumpsters parked in front of the house, piles of laundry all over the “hardwood” floors touted in the listing description, and once, even the family dog doing his or her business in the lovely green front yard. Listing pictures that have put your home in anything but its best, accurate light are a very quick way to ensure that you turn off a huge number of buyers from even coming to see your house! The only bigger buyer turn-off than these bizarre listing pics are listings that have no photos at all; most buyers on today’s market see a listing with no pictures and click right on past it, without giving the place a second glance.
What’s a Seller to do? Check your home’s listing and make sure that the pics represent your home well. If not, ask your agent to grab some new shots and get them online (and say pretty please, pretty please!).


Tara-Nicholle Nelson

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

INSIDER SECRETS TO BUYING A HOME


By Tara-Nicholle Nelson

Buying a home is not a discrete event; it's a process - a sequence of events that happens over time, sometimes over as long as several months or even years!
While general guides to buying a home are a dime a dozen, I'm excited to share with you some insider secrets you may not have heard elsewhere - one for each stage involved in buying a home. Here's to helping you make the best decisions at every phase of your homebuying process!

Stage One: Deciding Whether It's The Right Time to Buy.
Insider Secret: The market is the least important factor you should consider when deciding whether and when to buy a home.
Why? Everyone knows affordability is at an all-time high. Home prices are low, and so are interest rates. But trying to time the market is a fool's errand; many who get caught up in that game of trying to make sure they buy at the absolute bottom will end up losing out on very, very favorable conditions.
Beyond that, the most important considerations when deciding whether and when you should buy a home are personal, not market driven. On today's market, it only makes sense to buy a place if it's going to be sustainable and work for you for at least the next 4-5 years [if your town's real estate market has been fairly recession-proof] or 7-10 years [if the housing/foreclosure crisis has hit your area pretty hard].
Against this "smart holding period" backdrop, smart buyers decide to buy when it makes sense for:
their life plans (i.e., they are comfortable making the commitment to live in the same town, and the commitment to )
their family plans (i.e., whether they plan to get married, have children or empty their nest in the time they plan to own the home - and the implications of these plans on their space needs and location priorities)
their career plans (including, but not limited to: whether they have job or income security, whether they feel they will be working in the same area for the foreseeable future, and whether they want to work less or start their own business in the months or years to come)
their financial plans (including foreseeable changes in income and expenses, e.g., kids going to college or making partner at the firm).


Stage Two: Getting Pre-Approved.
Insider Secret: Working with a mortgage broker referred by your real estate broker or agent may save you money.
Why? Bolstered by the real-life stories of a couple of bad apples, TV pundits and some consumer advocates have spun the tale of a real estate industry cartel, whereby sinister agents hook unsuspecting buyers up with shady mortgage brokers, who place them in crappy loans and kick back some bucks to the agent.
I'm here to tell you, in my experience the opposite is true the vast majority of the time. When you work with a mortgage broker who has a strong track record of helping your real estate agent's clients out, you end up in a best of all worlds situation nine times out of ten.
First off, your agent will take you much more seriously once a mortgage broker they know and trust has run your credit, checked your income and approved you for a loan, as well as communicated with your real estate pro about your qualifications and what you can afford. Secondly, your agent can help you communicate with your mortgage broker, sometimes helping get past appraisal glitches or facilitating other workarounds, as they come up. Third, you get the assurance of working with a mortgage pro who has been vetted and vouched for by someone you not only trust, but someone who can verify that the mortgage broker has the ability to get transactions closed in the timely manner required of today's real estate sales contract. Otherwise, you may end up working with a competent mortgage broker who has a great track record when it comes to refinancing, but can't keep up with the pace and common obstacles to getting a home financed in the context of a sale.
On top of that, sometimes the relationship can help you negotiate out of a couple of line item loan fees (if your particular mortgage rep has the power to get them down at all), if push comes to shove and cash is tight to close the deal. Assuming you are working with a real estate pro you really trust, working with a mortgage broker they trust can save you, rather than cost you, money.

Stage Three: House Hunting
Insider Secret: "Distressed" doesn't always equal "discounted" - in some cases, a "regular" sale can be a deeper deal.
Why? Short sales and foreclosures have grown to comprise roughly 30 percent of the homes sold on today's market, even higher in some areas. The average sale price of foreclosed homes was 32% lower than the average sale price of non-foreclosed homes, at last count. However, it's not always the case that foreclosed homes or short sales - homes which are being sold for less than what the seller owes on their mortgage(s) - offer the buyer a fabulous discount.
Mortgage servicers and asset managers who make decisions about distressed properties are on the hook to their investors to recoup as close as possible to the current fair market value of every home they sell. Some banks even have a general rule of rejecting offers more than 10 percent or so below the home's list price, preferring instead to reduce the price by that amount and put the home back on the open market to see if any new buyers are activated by the price reduction to make an offer better than the lowball offer that was initially put on the table.
On short sales, the bank is trying to get as close as possible to recovering what the seller owes - and may or may not be concerned with what the fair market value of the home is. (Nine times out of ten, there will be a big gap between fair market value and the seller's outstanding mortgage balance. If there wasn't, the seller wouldn't need to do a short sale!)
With so many distressed properties and homes with depressed values on the market, in many areas, the individual, non-distressed home sellers who are putting their homes up for sale right now are those who are very motivated to sell. Further, they are more likely to be flexible with you on everything that is negotiable, from contingency and escrow periods, to price, to repairs and included items. Also, individual sellers can be emotionally motivated to sell to move on with their lives, get into their bigger (or smaller) house, or move on to their next job; banks, on the other hand, aren't people (!), so lack that emotional sense of urgency to get the properties sold, no matter how urgently you may think they should be trying to get rid of the foreclosed properties they own. (If you've heard the old advice that banks don't want to be in the home-owning business, I can tell you this. That is true, in a very general sense, but now they are and will be - for a long time to come. They have no emotions, have no urgent need to sell or move, and are not willing to give houses away at pennies on the dollar to get out of it, no matter what those infomercial folks say.)
Long story short: you can sometimes negotiate a better deal with an individual seller on a "regular" sale than with a bank on a distressed home sale. So, don't limit your house hunt to foreclosures and short sales, if you're looking for a good deal on your home.

Stage Four: Negotiations
Insider Secret: Your family and friends can cause you to lose your dream home.
Why? With so much information on the web and the news every day about the recession and the buyer's market, everyone seems to be an armchair economist/real estate savant. But much of that news is national and based on medians, averages and trends. That is, it might not necessarily apply to every home on the market in every city, and more importantly, it might have nothing to do with "your" particular home.
When I was a little girl, my best friend's grandfather would very carefully hand each of us a quarter, always doling it out with the sage admonition: "Don't spend it all in one place." We'd always smile, look at each other, then go ask our Moms for ten bucks apiece. In the same vein, people who are not currently in the market for a home have no idea what an individual home should "go for."
If you tell your parents, church pals, or colleagues at work the blow-by-blow details of your offer, counteroffers, etc., you should expect to hear things like, "Oh, you're paying way too much!", "I think you should push them down another $10K," or "You know, you're in a better bargaining position than that." And sometimes, taking that sort of advice will end up blowing your deal. Work with your trusty real estate broker or agent to develop a smart strategy - with their experience in your local market - about what price and terms to offer. Then keep working with them to manage and maintain realistic expectations as you proceed through negotiating the contract to buy your home.

Stage Five: Escrow, Inspections and Underwriting
Insider Secret: It's critical that you attend your home inspections.
Why? When it comes to inspections, many first-time buyers expect that a home will either pass or fail. Except in a few jurisdictions where the government imposes certain condition requirements for a home to be sold, the home inspection is more about educating you, the buyer, as to the details and nuances of the home's condition than about seeing if the place hits a particular target for "good" or "bad" condition.
Home inspectors don't just look for things that need fixing, they also look to understand the home's systems and features, as well as to point out areas that will require your ongoing maintenance, highlight emergency shutoffs and other need-to-knows, and indicating where you should have specialists further inspect items of concern. Many home inspectors create vivid, detailed electronic reports - some, complete with color photos.
But that's not enough! If you're physically onsite at the home during the inspections, the inspector can physically show you the shutoffs for water, gas and electric - and how to use them. They can also point out, in person, any things that need repair, and give you some tips for maintaining the place in tip-top shape.
Also, in many states, the general home inspector is legally prohibited (vs. the pest, roof or other "specialty" inspectors) from issuing a written quote or bid for repairs, to avoid a conflict of interest where they'd try to fabricate flaws in the home to get the repair job. However, the repair costs are one of the most important things a smart buyer wants to know! If you show up, many inspectors will give you a rough range it would cost you to do various repairs, or otherwise indicate to you whether the needed repairs are "big deal" or "$10 home improvement store" fixes; some will even give you a few references to contractors they trust.
All around, you'll get much more of the detailed information you need to know whether and how to move forward with the transaction if you should up in person to the home inspections, rather than just waiting for a copy of the report to come to your email.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

To get the most impact and to help you fully understand the passion behind the words, you should read this out loud so you can hear your own voice as if you are speaking to yourself. You and you alone have the power to make anything you want a reality. There is nothing you can't do!

Your quality of life is and always has been about the choices you make. Everything good that has happened to you is because of the choices you have made; unfortunately, everything not so good that has happened to you could have been avoided if you would have made better choices.

What choices will you make today?

You have the ability to create and predict the outcome of your day because of the choices you are about to make.

Will you choose to tackle your to-do list today, or will you settle for being average and procrastinate like most of society? I WILL TACKLE MY TO-DO LIST.

Will you choose to have conflict with your co-workers today, or will you rise above and try and be the bright spot in their day and only speak encouraging and positive words. I WILL NOT HAVE CONFLICT TODAY; I WILL BE ENCOURAGING TO OTHERS TODAY.

Will you choose to avoid calling that difficult customer who always brings you down, or will you conquer that phone call and find a solution that will make them happy or at the very least satisfy their concerns. I WILL DO MY BEST TO SATISFY MY CUSTOMER.

Will you choose to be a better manager today; manager of your people, manager of your time, and manager of your day? YES I WILL! I WILL BE A BETTER MANAGER OF PEOPLE TODAY; I WILL MANAGE MY TIME AND MYSELF BETTER TODAY. YES I WILL.

Will you choose to be a better parent, significant other, son or daughter today? YES I WILL BE A BETTER PARENT, BETTER TO MY SPOUSE, BETTER AND MORE UNDERSTANDING TO MY KIDS. YES I WILL.

Is your day important enough to you to try and improve, to try and be better at everything you set out to do? Will you be willing to stop complaining about unimportant things today that you have no control over? Will you stop being complacent and face up to the fact that you hate being average? Are you willing to try harder, work harder and make your day more significant?

YES I WILL. I AM DARN TIRED OF BEING AVERAGE, I WILL WORK HARDER, I WILL TRY HARDER, I WILL STOP COMPLAINING AND TAKE RESPONSIBILITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY FOR WHAT IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN TODAY.

Are you willing to stand up and stand for something you believe in regardless of peer pressure or what others think of you? Are you willing to show your competition and your critics that you truly believe it when you say "There is nothing I can't do”,” There is nothing I can't do”,” There is nothing I can't do"?

YES, I AM THAT CONFIDENT IN MYSELF TO TRULY BELIEVE THAT "THERE IS NOTHING I CAN'T DO".

Are you willing to admit that being average is easy, and you will not be average anymore.

YES, I AM GREAT TODAY. I CHOOSE TO BE GREAT TODAY. I CHOOSE TO BE GREAT TODAY BECAUSE "THERE IS NOTHING I CAN'T DO".

I AM THE CHOICE AND I CHOOSE TO BE GREAT TODAY.

I WILL NOT WAIT FOR MY NEXT LIFE TO BE GREAT, I CHOOSE NOW, I CHOOSE TODAY.

I CHOOSE TO WIN, TO WIN, TO WIN, TO WIN AND TO INCORPORATE THE ATTITUDE, "THERE IS NOTHING I CAN'T DO".

TODAY I CHOOSE TO CREATE MY OWN ECONOMY, I CHOOSE NOT TO BE A VICTIM OF OUR SOCIETY, I WILL BE SIGNIFICANT, I WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE NOT ONLY IN MY OWN LIFE BUT EVERYONE AROUND ME. I CHOOSE TO BE GREAT TODAY, I CHOOSE TO BE GREAT TODAY, I CHOOSE TO BE GREAT TODAY... WHY... BECAUSE "THERE IS NOTHING I CAN'T DO".

Print this out, make it your mission, own it! Read this out loud everyday with passion and conviction, with love from your heart, visualize it, live it, make it your own.Make another choice today and refer me to speak to anyone, any company or organization you may know that needs to be better, more profitable, more business growth and more attitude and gratitude building.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

cut/copy and paste

A friend asked, "Can you give me a step-by-step on "cut and paste" ???


Sure. There are 2 ways:

I prefer "copy and paste" over "cut and paste" because sometimes I think twice. Truly. (Cut and paste takes the stuff off of your screen and puts it into your mouse. Copy and paste leaves it where it was and then duplicates it somewhere else, so that if you like the finished product you can then delete what was there before. No biggie - it's up to you.)

Don't panic - practice.

Check that your mouse has 2 buttons, one for your index finger and one for your middle finger. Really - I'm not making this up..............


If so, look at the sentence above.

Put your cursor (the pointer thing, the arrow, or the line that looks like an I-Beam) at the end of that sentence.

Push down on the index finger button.

Drag it over the sentence, highlighting the sentence.

Release your index finger. The sentence should have a blue highlight.
Now click the middle finger button.

A menu will pop up.

See "copy?"

Click it.

Now take your cursor to where you want those words to be.

Click the middle finger button again.

See "paste?"

Click paste.

The words will magically appear.

Delete the words from where they were before.

If you don't have 2 mouse buttons, in the parts where I said "Use your middle finger" just go to the top of your computer screen. Click "edit." You'll get the same cut and paste menu.

Or, go to youtube and search "cut and paste" and watch a video. Or both.


Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Inman News - sales rise, prices stable

Real estate sales rebound in 2011, prices nearly flat
NAR forecast anticipates quicker recovery for new homes

By Inman News, Thursday, January 27, 2011.

Inman News™
In its latest real estate and economic forecast, the National Association of Realtors anticipates that sales of existing homes, after falling 4.8 percent in 2010, will rise 7.9 percent this year, to 5.3 million, and another 4.5 percent in 2012, to 5.53 million.
The median price of existing homes, meanwhile, rose 0.3 percent in 2010 after a 12.9 percent drop in 2009, and is expected to rise 0.5 percent this year, to $173,800, and another 2.4 percent in 2012, to $177,900.


Sales of new single-family homes are expected to rebound faster, rising 17.7 percent this year, to 374,000 sales, after a 15.5 percent drop in 2010, and then rising 51.1 percent in 2012, to 565,000 sales. In an earlier forecast, released last month, NAR anticipated that sales of new single-family homes would climb 20.8 percent in 2011 and 30.9 percent in 2012.

The new-home median price rose 2.2 percent in 2010 and is expected to climb 1.8 percent this year, to $224,700, and 1.9 percent in 2012, to $229,000.

NAR expects that 30-year-fixed mortgage rates will average 5.1 percent this year, up from 4.7 percent in 2010, and rise to 5.9 percent in 2012.

The group also forecasts the U.S. unemployment rate to fall from 9.7 percent in 2010 to 9.4 percent this year and 8.7 percent in 2012, while U.S. real gross domestic product is expected to dip from 2.8 percent in 2010 to 2.6 percent this year, rising to 3.2 percent in 2012.